>
>
> >If it walks like a flamingo and looks like a flamingo, it is not
necessarily
> >a flamingo - or even a close relative. A controversial genetic study
> >suggests we have completely misunderstood how the majority of birds are
> >related, and that some species that look almost identical are not related
at
> >all.
> >
>
> This example shows how bird morphologies converge while their genes
diverge.
> Nature is plainly telling us that evolution (of those morphological
> convergences) doesn't depend on genes.
>
> Although the above fact needs no corroboration, put this case in a broader
> context:
> 1. Human morphology is incomparably more complex than that of one of the
> simplest worms, Cenorhabditis elegans, and yet both species have almost
the
> same number of genes (~20,000).
> 2. The genetic information determining the sequence of amino acids in
peptide
> chains is inappropriate (no one has ever attempted to prove that it is)
for
> determining spatial arrangement of cells from which animal morphology
arises.
> Even if, for the sake of argument, one would admit that that information
is
> qualitatively appropriate, another insuperable barrier would arise:
> 3. The amount of information for erecting the bird supracellular structure
is
> of the order of trillions of bits, while the amount of information in
their
> genome (genes and junk DNA) is less than one thousandth of that amount.
>
> In view of the above, can anybody here in sbe or elsewhere show how genes
might
> determine bird morphology? Even a speculation on a defensible mechanism
would
> be a great revelation.
>
> Nelson R. Cabej
>

RKS:
Nature is a lock - any suitably shaped key can open it to reveal its rich
resources, whether that key is made of brass or copper or steal or gold etc.

Take the Marsupial dog, the Tasmanian Tiger.  They are so similar to regular
dogs that golden coloured Labradors with a few stripes painted on their
backs have been used, to varying degrees of success, to hoax the public
through photographs and film.  The real thing has a short stiff tail, which
is not easily emulated.

Kind Regards
Robert Karl Stonjek
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